Wednesday, August 05, 2015

yarn along: radiance

"Now, have a good summer. Dabble your feet in the water and fill the sock-drawer against next winter. I find this as satisfying as studying seed catalogues by a roaring January fire." --Elizabeth Zimmerman, The Opinionated Knitter

I may not be knitting socks right now but I am enjoying finishing up a delicate shawl for the coming colder months. I am now casting off using a picot edge for 700+ stitches. I ended up having a few more rows of stockinette to do than I realized when I posted last week, but I will definitely have this shawl cast off in a day or two. I haven't decided what I will cast on next, but I decided to rip out the pair of socks I was working on because I don't like them, which leaves me with nothing on needles?? My project-in-reserves for a long time has been this lace shawl so now I get the fun of deciding what to do next. And in perfect timing because my mom and I are spending a couple days together alone this week near my LYS, Yarn Folk. I fully intend to avail myself of the yarn at hand while browsing with another person who loves yarn as much as I do!I am reading Monster in the Hollows by Andrew Peterson, and listening often to The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim on the Classic Tales podcast. Such a great find for me, these one-at-a-time installments of literature that someone else has chosen for me. Have you heard of Elizabeth von Arnim? I hadn't but I am really enjoying this book. It makes me feel the way I feel when we watch Parks & Rec; I can be laughing out loud one moment and tearing up the next, all because I love the characters. (Other than that it's nothing like P&R.) I am also still loving Sense and Sensibility in small doses each week with CraftLit. A few weeks ago someone asked me about the light fixtures in a glimpse of a picture I shared. My husband designed and built them and deserves many accolades. There are two matching mason-jar fixtures, one hanging above my small kitchen and one hanging a few feet away over our table. It is a little piece of the remodel we are doing; before we started, there was a hideous falling-apart drop ceiling with inset fluorescent lights, like a classroom. *Shudder* I hated the lighting, I hated the buzzing noise from the lights, and oh they were ugly. I tried not to complain but it was reaching critical mass this past winter when we just didn't even want to be in that room anymore as one of the bulb flickered and was burning out and buzzed even louder. When Jesse and my dad removed the drop ceiling we discovered that instead of drywall the ceiling was fiberboard so we had to drywall and texture completely. This is a small piece of our kitchen remodel and I will have to post more about our projects soon!

I have been without a washing machine for two weeks now. Our new one should be delivered on Friday, Lord willing. Thank goodness for good friends and laundromats. We are also in the process of getting a new porch, thanks largely in part to a few people who visited the area last week on a team and were willing to come get rid of the dangerous old porch that was falling in and replace it. I was really worried about it after Lyddie fell earlier this summer and gouged her knee presumably on a nail and had to get several stitches at the ER that evening. The Rotting-Safety-Hazard that was our previous porch is gone...... and the picture below is of the new redwood porch almost complete. Pretty, huh? We hope to build a pergola over it with grape vines (or wisteria) climbing it eventually and line the porch with a simple flower bed with lavender and maybe a couple bushes (and replace those awful windows and the awful door and put some furniture and a built in bench on the porch but....... slow down there, Sar, in time... in time). We definitely live in a fixer-upper and it is encouraging when I see dreams coming true. The girls love the new porch and have been playing on it in the sunshine with their baby dolls.

I always look forward to connecting with the other friends at the Yarn Along linkup! Join us, will you?